2023 Legislative Session Kick-Off 🎊
This free-content issue includes information about the new adult-use legalization bill, the MN is Ready campaign, and how to get involved
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The 2023 session of the Minnesota Legislature kicked off last week with the introduction of a new and improved (but still very much in need of further improvement—see below) adult-use legalization bill. With a newly elected pro-legalization majority in both the House and the Senate, as well as the support of the Governor, this is the year that we’re going to get adult-use cannabis legalized in Minnesota BUT IF, AND ONLY IF, we keep our wits about us and work together and with legislators in a constructive and organized manner.
From now through the end of session, the Pre-Roll will be your weekly bulletin for tracking relevant bills, hearings, opportunities to testify, and all other #mnleg-related info and intel.
1. New Bill Introductions & Hearings
Jan. 5: Rep. Zack Stephenson (DFL-Coon Rapids) and long list of other DFL representatives introduced HF100, a bill to legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis.
The bill will be heard in the House Commerce Committee and will be heard this Wed., Jan. 11 at 1:00PM in Room 10 of the State Office Building. A link for streaming the hearing will be posted here.
Jan. 9: Sens. Lindsey Port (DFL-Burnsville, Clare Oumou Verbeten (DFL-St. Paul), Aric Putnam (DFL-St. Cloud), and Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul) introduced SF73, the Senate companion to HF100.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. No hearing date has been announced yet.
Stay tuned for our analysis of HF100/SF73 in this week’s upcoming premium issue of the Pre-Roll exclusively for our paid subscribers. Not a paid subscriber? Click the button to become one now!
Jan. 9: Rep. Mike Frieberg (DFL-Golden Valley) introduced HF175, a bill allowing medical cannabis manufacturers to distribute medical cannabis to Tribal medical cannabis program patients and related provisions.
The bill has been referred to the House Health Finance and Policy Committee. No hearing date has been announced yet.
Jan. 9: Sens. Mark Koran (R-North Branch) and Jeff Howe (R-Rockville) introduced SF89, a bill providing that a a person may not be denied the right to purchase, own, possess, or carry a firearm solely on the basis that the person is enrolled as a patient in the medical cannabis registry.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. No hearing date has been announced yet.
2. MN is Ready
ICYMI, the MN is Ready campaign—Minnesota’s unified advocacy effort to pass adult-use legislation in 2023—announced the next phase of our effort and the addition of former House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler as our new campaign chair!
We're excited to announce the next phase of the MN is Ready campaign that will push for the passage of a comprehensive adult-use cannabis legalization bill in 2023 that prioritizes safety, equity, and Minnesota businesses. #mnisready LEARN MORE: mnisready.org/122922-release
From the press release:
Pro-legalization advocates launched today the next phase of MN is Ready, a comprehensive strategic campaign to legalize adult-use cannabis in Minnesota. The new phase of the campaign brings together the largest and most diverse coalition of cannabis policy stakeholders in Minnesota – including industry members, aligned advocacy groups, community advocates, and other supporters – to engage grassroots constituencies and work directly with lawmakers to pass full adult-use cannabis legalization in 2023.
The campaign also announced that outgoing House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler will join the campaign as its new chair. In 2019, Winkler launched the "Be Heard on Cannabis" tour of community listening sessions on cannabis legalization in 15 cities across the state. In 2021, Winkler introduced H.F. 600, Minnesota’s first comprehensive adult-use legalization bill, which the Minnesota House passed that same year.
The campaign is managed by political strategist Leili Fatehi of public affairs firm Apparatus GBC. The leadership team also includes veteran fundraiser Chris Kluthe, who serves as the campaign’s development director, and cannabis policy expert Maren Schroeder, who will direct the campaign’s industry and public engagement efforts. The campaign has retained lobbyists Will Blauvelt, director of government relations at Stinson LLP, and Henry Erdman to lead its work at the State Capitol.
The campaign’s growing coalition of supporters includes the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), the ACLU of Minnesota, the Great Rise, Americans for Prosperity, the Minnesota Cannabis Beverage Association, and many Minnesota cannabis businesses including growers, processors, manufacturers, and retailers.
MN is Ready has set forth 6 core principles and objectives for adult-use legalization in Minnesota. Ryan Winkler discussed those principles in detail last month in an op-ed titled “Minnesota’s legalization of marijuana will be the nation’s best” published by the Star Tribune.
Check out Marijuana Moment’s article for more details about the campaign and what’s to come.
Blunt Strategies’ own Leili Fatehi, who is the campaign manager of MN is Ready, spoke with Kare11 about the campaign.
Winkler also joined Blois Olson on Blois’ podcast to talk about the campaign and the need for adult-use legalization. Listen here.
If you’re interested in joining or supporting the MN is Ready campaign, please contact leili@bluntstrategies.com.
3. Legalization Bill Introduction & Fanfare
On Thursday, Jan. 5, the authors of the new adult-use legalization bill held a press conference to present the bill. You can watch that press conference here.
The press conference and bill release was covered by Kare11, MPRNews, Star Tribune, and Marijuana Moment
MinnPost’s Peter Callaghan wrote an article focused more specifically on the tax provisions in the bill. From the article:
The chair of the Minnesota House committee with control of taxes had a message for education and social services advocates Thursday: Don’t expect recreational marijuana to raise money to enhance those programs.
Rep. Aisha Gomez, the Minneapolis DFLer who leads the House Taxes Committee, used the rollout of a massive recreational marijuana bill to say it won’t produce a bucket of cash for other programs.
“Cannabis taxes in our bill are not going to solve anyone’s social problems,” she said. “We’re not going to use taxes to fix the education changes that our communities need, to build all the affordable housing that we need, to fix all the infrastructure that we need.
“We designed this bill to address the wrongs of prohibition, to bring people out of the illicit market and into a regulated market, which means we try not to have a high tax on cannabis so it can compete.”
The Minnesota Reformer and Star Tribune also did a deeper dive into the bill provisions.
Governor Walz’ tweeted his support for adult-use legalization—MN is Ready and so is Governor Walz:
Not only that—Governor Walz’ campaign also sent out a email blast with the subject like “Minnesota is Ready” directing people to sign an online petition in support of adult-use legalization. From Marijuana Moment’s article about the email:
Walz, meanwhile, has been pushing the legislature to move ahead with legalization—and he’s leveraging the recent momentum to build additional support as lawmakers prepare to enact the policy change.
As part of that effort, the governor sent out an email blast that begins by saying that “Minnesota’s current cannabis laws are doing more harm than good.”
“It’s time for us to follow common sense and harness the proven benefits of legalizing adult-use cannabis—from expanding our economy, improving our criminal justice system, creating good-paying jobs across our state, and creating more space for law enforcement to focus on violent crime,” the email says.
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The email and petition, of course, also serve a campaign fundraising goal of generating contact information from potential donors. But it’s also another signal that the governor sees opportunity to finally end prohibition in Minnesota with the Democratic majorities in place.
👏 Kudos
Josh Wilken-Simon, owner of Legacy Glassworks, has been selected as a changemaker by Voyage Minnesota. Read Voyage Minnesota’s interview with Josh here.